It has been the practice in the past to place newly formed glass containers on a moving conveyor that passes by the deadplates of a multi-section I.S. type glass forming machine. The containers are moved from the deadplate onto the conveyor and then move away from the machine in a straight line. The newly formed bottles are annealed to remove thermal stresses by placing them on the mat of a lehr. The lehr is a fairly wide oven that will accept rows of bottles, in sequence, as the lehr mat or conveyor moves through the lehr. The lehr is usually positioned with its opening at right angles to the machine conveyor; thus the bottles on the machine conveyor are moved through a transfer curve onto another conveyor which moves across the width of the opening into the lehr when a line of bottles is periodically pushed onto the traveling lehr mat.
Such a handling system is schematically shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,193,784, issued Mar. 18, 1980. As shown in this patent, the row of bottles on the machine conveyor 14 is moved to a cross conveyor 15 by a transfer device 16. It should be noted that reference is made in this patent to other patents which disclose examples of these mechanisms in greater detail. This background information is incorporated herein by reference thereto in order to provide a complete understanding of the present invention. The transfer device which is presently in use is abusive to the hot bottles and also can only perform its function to a certain speed without upsetting the containers, particularly if those containers are tall and narrow in shape.
In an effort to overcome the transfer problem, the use of sideflex chains, such as Rexnord Multi-flex or Link Belt FJG, have been suggested and in those instances where they were used they were found to be of short life and required a great deal of lubrication. This excessive lubrication created the problem that when the hot bottles encountered the volatile lubrication, the results would be a thermal check in the bottle at the place where the lubrication would evaporate due to the hot bottle contact. It was the practice to lubricate the conveyor belts or chains and then burn off the excess lubrication in advance of the ware contacting the chain. This burning of the lubrication usually by directing a flame onto the surface would draw out the chain temper resulting in reduced life.